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SPLC, Gun Control: If You Are Going To Take A Stand, You Must Take It Now!

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama, has long been used by the federal government and the national press corps to paint conservative organizations as “extremists,” “anti-government,” “hate groups,” etc. No sooner would the SPLC issue some attack piece in their newsletter and police agencies all over the country would be issuing bulletins to their officers regurgitating what the SPLC had just spewed out. No private organization has this kind of connection to, and influence over, police agencies nationwide without collaboration with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, D.C. Well, now, we have evidence that such a collaboration exists.

Breitbart.com has just released a report by Judicial Watch confirming that the DOJ and the SPLC are intricately tied to the hip. The report states, “Judicial Watch (JW), a Washington D.C. based non-partisan educational foundation, released some two dozen pages of emails it obtained on Tuesday revealing connections between the Department of Justice Civil Rights and Tax divisions and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

“According to JW, the e-mails reveal questionable behavior by agency personnel while negotiating for Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) co-founder Morris Dees to appear as the featured speaker at a July 31, 2012, ‘Diversity Training Event.’ Judicial Watch obtained the records pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) submitted to the DOJ on September 10, 2012:

“‘The Judicial Watch FOIA request was prompted by an apparently politically motivated shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in August, 2012. At the time of the shooting, FRC president Tony Perkins accused the SPLC of sparking the shooting, saying the shooter “was given a license to shoot… by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations as hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy.” On its website, the SPLC has depicted FRC as a hate group, along with such mainstream conservative organizations as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and Coral Ridge Ministries.’

“The FOIA request specifically requested ‘any and all records concerning, regarding, or relating to the Southern Poverty Law Center’ between January 1 and August 31, 2012, including the Dees’ presentation sponsored by the Civil Rights and Tax divisions of the DOJ.

“JW says that they filed the request to see if any of SPLC’s branding of hate groups had an influence on government agencies. According to the emails SPLC’s diversity speech ‘was to be simulcast to everyone’s PC throughout the Department’ which fulfilled DOJ supervisors’ ‘mandatory annual diversity training.’

“The emails produced by the DOJ show communications between DOJ personnel planning the Diversity Training Event and SPLC personnel, including Dees.”

The report went on to say,

“The Southern Poverty Law Center has, in the past few years, taken to labeling organizations with conservative views on social issues as ‘hate groups,’ said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, in a press release.

“‘Given these fawning emails, one would have thought that a head of state was visiting the Justice Department. The SPLC is an attack group, and it is disturbing that it has premier access to our Department of Justice, which is charged with protecting the First Amendment rights of all Americans. And these emails further confirm that politically-correct “mandatory” diversity training programs are a waste of taxpayer money,’ Fitton claimed.

I have been personally victimized by the SPLC and DOJ’s vicious smear campaigns. In 2008, the State of Missouri issued their now infamous MIAC report, which identified supporters of Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and me as being potential dangerous militia members and similar absurdities. This report was issued after State officials received the inflammatory accusations from DHS Fusion Centers. After an outcry of protest from people all over America, and after Ron, Bob, and I demanded an apology from those Missouri officials who issued this libelous report, the report was rescinded and an apology was issued.

I have an entire webpage devoted to the MIAC fiasco. To see it, go here:DHS & MIAC Reports

I wish I could say that the MIAC episode was the only such time this has happened, but that just isn’t true. I have had police officers and deputy sheriffs in several states personally show me memorandums that they had received from their respective police agencies depicting me and other notable conservatives with the same derogatory characteristics. These memos were once again issued to local police departments and sheriff’s offices via DHS-DOJ Fusion Centers. And those memos were almost word-for-word the same kind of character-assassination that appeared in SPLC publications. Now we know why, don’t we?

So, will the national and even local media now stop using the SPLC as a credible source for identifying so-called “hate” groups? Don’t count on it. The national press corps is mostly in bed with big-government zealots in Washington, D.C., and will do everything they can to smear and besmirch limited-government conservatives. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this matches the definition of the word “conspiracy.”

On a related topic, let me remind readers to let their pastor-friends know about the webpage where they can sign up to publicly state that they will support the right of their church members to keep and bear arms, no matter what law is passed in Washington, D.C.

All over America, hundreds of sheriffs have publicly said that that they will not enforce any attempt by the federal government to confiscate semi-automatic rifles from the citizens of their counties and neither will they allow federal police agents to confiscate semi-automatic rifles from the citizens of their counties. We are asking pastors all over the country to take a similar stand, by encouraging their congregants to NOT obey any federal law to disarm.

By the way, I have personally received hundreds of emails from members of the US military, including special forces troops, who have stated unequivocally that, not only will they not obey orders to confiscate the semi-automatic rifles of the American people, but that they would join those Americans who would resist such an order.

Now, it’s time for pastors to stand and be counted!

America’s War for Independence began on April 19, 1775, when Pastor Jonas Clark and the male members of his Church at Lexington stood on Lexington Green (outside the very church house where they assembled for worship each Sunday) and fired the “shot heard ’round the world.” It was a local church pastor and the plucky patriots of his congregation who were willing to resist the tyrannical laws of their national government to confiscate their guns and illegally seize Sam Adams and John Hancock that ignited our revolutionary war. Without the pastors of 1775 and 1776, there would have been no Lexington Green, no Concord Bridge, no Bunker Hill, no Declaration of Independence, no British surrender at Yorktown, no US Constitution, and no United States of America.

Think about this: the federal government is using “private” organizations such as the SPLC to denigrate, mischaracterize, and marginalize us; it sends hit pieces to local police departments and sheriff’s offices to inflame animosity, suspicion, and even prejudice among law enforcement officers against us; it has created an entire Army division–not to mention the DHS–targeting America’s “homeland”; it is releasing thousands of drones over the skies of the continental United States; it uses its lackeys in the national media as propaganda agents to promote an ever-burgeoning police state; and now it is attempting to take away the right of the people to keep and bear their most fundamental self-defense tool: the semi-automatic rifle. And we are supposed to think that all of this is mere coincidence? Hogwash!

Let me here quote from Patrick Henry’s immortal “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death” speech. By the way, this most-famous-of-all American speech was delivered almost one month to the day before the shots fired on Lexington Green. Henry’s speech was delivered on March 23, 1775; the shots fired on Lexington Green occurred on April 19, 1775.

Listen to Patrick Henry:

“Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these war-like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, Sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, Sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, Sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging.

“They tell us, Sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.”

As you read those words, remember that Henry was 39-years-old when he spoke them; that he was the father of seventeen children; that among those in the audience were Thomas Jefferson and George Washington; and that he was every bit the Christian as any American who has ever lived–including us Christians today.

Sheriff, if you are going to take a stand, you must take it now! Mr. Police Chief, if you are going to take a stand, you must take it now! Soldier and Marine, if you are going to take a stand, you must take it now! Pastor, if you are going to take a stand, you must take it now! Mr. and Mrs. America, if you are going to take a stand, you must take it now!

Let me remind readers, too, that my constitutional attorney son and I are in the process of publishing a brand new book designed to give Christians the tools they need to be able to properly understand that the Bible nowhere teaches that they should be willing to disarm themselves under any tyrannical order to do so. The book is entitled, “To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns.” The book will be released soon, and we are now taking pre-orders.

To pre-order the book, “To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns,” go to: Keep Your Arms

I submit that we are able to defend our liberties and defeat attempts by modern would-be tyrants to enslave us as much NOW as we were in 1775. It starts by settling the matter in your own heart that you are NOT going to surrender your semi-automatic rifle no matter what law is passed in Washington, D.C. Next, let your elected representatives and senators (both State and federal) know in no uncertain terms that the protection of our Second Amendment liberties is an absolute litmus test for re-election–political party notwithstanding. Thirdly, if your sheriff won’t take a stand for your right to keep and bear arms RIGHT NOW, vote him or her out of office at the earliest opportunity. You might even consider issuing a recall petition against him or her. And if your pastor will not take a stand RIGHT NOW, vote with your feet and leave his church and find a pastor who will. And while you’re at it, stop listening to these radio and TV preachers who keep telling you that it’s wrong to resist tyranny. They are aiding and abetting the enemies of freedom.

To quote Patrick Henry again, “Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?”

I say, again, if you are going to take a stand, you must take it now!

Dr. Chuck Baldwin left the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida to move to Montana. He hosts a weekly radio show. His website is here.